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Artists who express their opinions through art.

Born in New York City in 1905, Barnett Newman grew up in the Bronx, New York. Along with being an artist, Newman taught in New York City public schools, and at age twenty-seven he even attempted to run for mayor, producing a manifesto (a public declaration of his opinion) titled, "On the Need for Political Action by Men of Culture." Among the primary objectives set out by this manifesto was that music and art schools, city operas, and city museums and art galleries should be free.

Sending a Message
The idea for Broken Obelisk  (an obelisk is a tall, four-sided structure that comes to a pyramidlike point) came to Newman in 1963, but he was unable to create the work until he was introduced to a steel manufacturer in 1967. In 1968 Newman dedicated Broken Obelisk to the civil rights leader Martin Luther King, Jr., who was assassinated that same year

The lower part of the sculpture is a four-sided pyramid with a square base. The tip of the pyramid supports the top end of the upside-down broken obelisk. The Egyptian obelisk is associated with the sun’s rays and the return of life, or the sun god, Ra, at sunrise. Newman was very interested in the Egyptians, and he had even grown up seeing an ancient obelisk in New York City’s Central Park (installed in 1881, it is still there today). The form of the obelisk has been returned to again and again in Western culture, as exemplified by the obelisk in front of St. Peter’s Cathedral in Rome, and the Washington Monument in Washington, D.C.

• Does this information change the way you see the work? Why or why not?

• Does the form of Broken Obelisk say something to you? Why or why not?

• Do you think it’s appropriate that Newman dedicated this work to Martin Luther King, Jr.?

• Can you think of any monuments you’ve seen (in honor of a person, someone anonymous, a war, or an event) that successfully make you stop and think? If so, what makes them stand out to you?